Volleyball, Basketball Don't Mix At Montverde

November 21, 1987|By Joe Williams of The Sentinel Staff

Success for Montverde Academy's volleyball season could mean tough times for the early part of the basketball season. Montverde, being a small school, has several players who play both sports. Complicating the problem is that Montverde's volleyball coaches, husband and wife, Tom and Lisa Martin, also coach basketball. The basketball season already has been altered somewhat. Montverde was scheduled to open its season Friday night against Oviedo, but the game was cancelled. ''The Oviedo coach was real nice about it,'' Lisa Martin said. ''He called on Monday and said, 'You probably don't want to play basketball on Friday night, do you?' I said, 'Well, we've only got four players who are not playing volleyball.' We decided to cancel the game because we couldn't find an agreeable date to reschedule it.'' But, even with the cancelation, there won't be much rest for the volleyball/basketball players. Martin said the team is getting together for a basketball practice this morning and will play Towns County High School from Georgia tonight at 6:30. A boys' varsity game will be played at 8.

While on the basketball subject, next Friday will be a big day for the basketball teams from Leesburg High School. While most of us will be thinking about ways to work off big turkey dinners from the day before, Leesburg's players will be doing something about it and making money, too. The third annual Leesburg basketball marathon is scheduled for that day. The marathon is planned to raise money for the program. Teams participating include the boys' varsity No. 1 and No. 2 teams, the boys' junior varsity No. 1 and No. 2 teams, the girls' varsity and two alumni teams. Twenty-minute minigames will be played beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing until 1 p.m. The players receive pledges for the games. . . . Coach Mike Semanchik could hardly believe his eyes the first day of basketball practice at Leesburg a couple of weeks ago. Somewhere between 60 and 70 players came out. Too many players to divide among a varsity and junior varsity team, Semanchik thought. What to do, he wondered. Thus the creation of a Saturday league. The players who didn't make the junior varsity team will form four teams that will play on Saturdays. A brilliant way to keep the players interested.